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Posts Tagged ‘Mike Alvarez’

After the passing of Orange City Treasurer Helen Walker on July 30, the Orange City Council had 60 days to appoint a new Treasurer or call an expensive 2013 special election. The City of Orange issued a press release on August 28 announcing that applications would be accepted until September 12, giving candidates two weeks to apply for the appointment.

Today was the sole Orange City Council meeting between the close of applications and the deadline to make an appointment to avert a 2013 special election.

In a unanimous, bipartisan vote, the City Council appointed Eric Woolery to fill the Orange City Treasurer’s vacancy.

OC Political snagged the first interview with the newly-minted Treasurer.

“I’ve lived in Orange for almost 30 years. It’s a great pleasure to serve my hometown,” Woolery told us. “I’m looking forward to serving the citizens of Orange and helping the City Council be good stewards of our taxpayer dollars.”

Councilman Fred Whitaker made the motion to appoint Woolery, which was seconded by both Councilman Mike Alvarez and Mayor Pro Tem Mark Murphy, though Alvarez just slightly quicker on the second. Mayor Tita Smith also joined in the vote for Woolery. Councilman Denis Bilodeau was absent from the meeting.

A CPA for over 20 years, Woolery has been a resident of Orange County since he was in high school. He served as an elected member of the Orange County Board of Education from 1996-2000 and a volunteer member of the City of Orange Audit Oversight Committee from 1997-2007. Woolery has extensive private sector experience as a staff accountant at Ernst & Young, a corporate controller, owner of a private accounting firm, and CFO of a multimillion dollar company. Since 2008, Woolery has served as Deputy Director of Administration for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, in which he directed the DA’s financial and human resources. As Councilman Whitaker noted: In that capacity, Woolery prepares and oversees a budget larger than that of the City of Orange. (OC Political notes the Riverside County DA’s office has a $102 million budget, 11% larger than the City of Orange’s $92 million General Fund).

Woolery will earn $365 per month as Treasurer. He is now one of Orange County’s six elected City Treasurers (the other five are in Brea, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Placentia, and San Clemente). All six City Treasurers’ terms expire in 2016.

I was working on a database of the part affiliation of all Orange County local elected officials. Finally, I have completed the project with all of the special districts and county seats being added. I also fixed some errors in the previous versions (here, here, and here) and have combined the database into one post.

We have added a button on the menu bar for our readers to always be able to access this database and use it for whatever research/political needs that they may have. Due to the length of th epost you are going to have to click the below link to read the rest of the post.

Please note that a couple of races could potentially change based on a close finish and not all votes being counted. This post will be added to our website in a permanent tab that we will be creating at the top of the site.

Eight people filed for Orange City Council by the close of filing Friday. Two council seats are up, and they are held by termed-out Councilmembers Jon Dumitru (R) and Tita Smith (D), so there are no eligible incumbents in this race. In alphabetical order by last name, the nine candidates (and their ballot designations) are:

I’ll get back to Alvarez, Grangoff, Labrado, and Murphy in a minute, but let me briefly describe the other four first. Douglas is a perennial candidate for council, having run in the last four elections, and only once surpassing 11% of the vote. Callahan is a frequent letter writer to the Orange County Registerand is a former corporate executive, having been vice president and controller of Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group. Del Vecchio is a salesman, currently a national account representative at Equus Products (Equus sells “diagnostic & scan tools, test equipment, gauges and tachometers” for cars). Nothom is a teacher at the Lila School of Orange County, is currently developing the Joberu Community School, and is also the lead guitarist in a band called ReaLEyeZ.

Here are the Big Four:

Alvarez is a former Orange City Councilman, who termed out in 2004. He made an unsuccessful bid for Mayor in 2006 when Carolyn Cavecche defeated him 55.7%-33.2%.

Labrado is a sitting elected member of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, representing the people of Orange on that board since 1994.

Grangoff is an Orange Planning Commissioner. He’s also Deputy Chief of Staff to Supervisor Pat Bates and was an elected official at the age of 18 when he was a school board member before opting not to run for re-election to attend graduate school.

Murphy is a former Orange Mayor and City Councilman, who termed out in 2010. He was elected by the people of Orange in 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.